


Short and Flash Fiction Collection

by LoversAntiquities



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 07:32:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5859838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoversAntiquities/pseuds/LoversAntiquities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Comprises some of the works through my creative writing classes from Fall Semester 2014 to Fall Semester 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calling Out In Transit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Intro to Creative Writing, Fall 2014. Flash Fiction, introducing a character.

With all of the technological advances in his day, he would’ve thought a radio station would use something _other_ than a cassette deck. Yet there he was, stuck in a ten-by-twelve room for hours on end, running the latter half of the days news and the week’s top fourty Jazz hits to an audience of insomniacs and night watchmen. If they were even tuned in, that was. Most of the time, he felt like he was talking to himself; who _else_ was in the studio at that hour, anyway? Other than Mary the radio psychiatrist down the hall, and only _crazy_ people called her. He, he just stuck to his script from nine to five and slept the daylight away.

Adjusting to the night shift took its toll, both in body and spirit. Mrs. Brennan brought up Hiram to be the top of his class, sent him to the best of schools, paid his way to the most prestigious universities. She pushed him to work corporate; sixty hours, six days a week, no vacation, no life. She wanted money; he wanted to die. What would she think now, he wondered, carding his hands through short black locks, dull blue eyes wrinkled from the strain of years gone past. Would she care the company crashed and left him penniless in the streets of Glendale? He had never been on his own, but Life declared him ready at twenty-seven. How lucky for him.

After the fallout and the court dates, he took the first job he could find – radio disc jockey. And not even the _good_ kind, the ones people knew by name and listened to daily. No, he had no face and no one cared for a name. Day after day, he woke just as the sun began to set and left to the station before eight in the evening, readying the night’s playlist and top news reports from hour’s prior for the sleepless masses. The pay was barely _half_ what he made before. He downsized to a one-bedroom, enough to be comfortable. Not up to his darling _mother’s_ standards, but what did he care?

His coworkers didn't expect him to last a week, initially – he made it three years and counting. His had his own office, a salary that didn't depend on how sales were going that month, and friends that didn’t feel the need to solely recite projections and stock values every waking second. For once, he had control over what he did, how he dressed and combed his hair. Not the typical hours, but that didn’t matter. And he wouldn't have given it up for the _world_.

The last song began its fade out; with a content smile, he slipped the headphones over his ears and leant back in his chair, starting off the midnight news report with quiet fervor.

“ _In the wake of Hurricane Norbert, flood warnings are in effect for most of Southern California at this hour…_ ”


	2. Drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Intro to Creative Writing Fall 2014, Short Story between 8-15 pages. Literary realism. Was used as part of senior portfolio.

Out of all the bad days in Blake Benton’s relatively short life—from the torment received from his classmates in high school, blowing the final football game before playoffs to a sold-out crowd, to even being outed in front of his family by a too-chatty friend—none of them compared to the day his boss, head of Raleigh & Sons Attorneys in Oklahoma City, told him to pack a bag and head out west with his associate, the notorious prude of a man he was loathe to have known for all his living days.

Luke Lawson was every bit the pretentious tightwad his coworkers spoke about. Always dressed in tailored Armani with too-polished shoes, browline glasses shoved flush to his nose, blond hair slicked back with more pomade than necessary, never a strand out of place. He was ‘fresh meat,’ everyone said—barely a month in the firm, and he already had the reputation for being the hardest-working person there. People admired him—Blake couldn't stand his existence.

He swore the moment he saw the guy for the first time in nearly a decade that if he had to work within five feet of him, he would wrap his hands around his throat and make sure no one found the body. Much to his disdain, he found himself in Luke’s office one afternoon, watching him search for a bound book shoved somewhere in the expanse of his collected library of hardbacks, the man shoving aside porcelain statuettes haphazardly.

Five minutes into his grumbling exploration, Blake broke down and asked, “Anything particular you’re looking for?” Luke mumbled something that sounded vaguely indecent, never once letting his attention slip. “ _Luke_ , if you need something—.”

“I’m looking for a book for my _darling_ of a mother,” Luke conceded, fingers white knuckled into his belt. “If we’re going to Los Angeles in your _deathtrap_ of a car together—because we are _not_ flying, no matter how much you beg—then I need to drop it at her house once we get there. I borrowed it last year, and she’s given me nothing but grief since.”

“Well, don’t give yourself a hernia over it,” Blake huffed. “Here, tell me what it looks like.”

With a disgruntled sigh, Luke described it: a leather-bound book about the size of every other of his law texts, detailing the history of early-twentieth century California, because _that_ must have been a thrill to write in the first place. Luke’s mother was either neurotic or bored out of her skull. Blake wouldn't know; had never been allowed to meet her. Despite his lingering hatred of his former childhood friend, Blake offered his assistance and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, pilfering the shelves with the hope of finding _something_ amongst the brown-backed rows. He might as well have gotten on Luke’s good side; they were about to be stuffed in his car for well over a day.

Blake found it on the far end of one of the oak-paneled shelves and handed it off to his coworker, who didn't appear the _least_ bit grateful for his servitude, taking the book with an eye-roll. Plopping into his rolling armchair, Luke threw the volume on the desk and palmed his eyes. “What part of Mr. Raleigh thought this was a great idea?”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Blake huffed and leaned back against the door, arms crossed. “I don’t wanna be here anymore than you do.”

“Understatement.” Luke lowered his hands and swiveled, gray eyes glaring in Blake’s direction. “You’re a pompous, self-entitled—.”

“Whoa, _whoa_. Who’re you calling _pompous_?” Blake shut down Luke’s attempt at a retort. “If _anyone’s_ pompous around here, it’s _you_ and your inflated ego, Mr. Fresh out of Harvard. Why’d you move back here, anyway? Couldn't stand being with your kind?”

“Because I had nowhere to _go_ after graduation, and I’d appreciate it if you’d quit throwing it back in my face.” Luke left his seat to stand in front of the picture window, the view overlooking the few skyscrapers of Oklahoma City and the surrounding desert. “Look. If we’re to do this, then I think we should spend as little time talking as possible. Deal?”

Blake shrugged. “Sounds fine to me.” He pulled away from the door to leave, stopping with his hand on the knob. “What time am I picking you up tomorrow?”

“Five.”

Fair enough. He left Luke to sulk in front of his window, getting nothing more than a shrug as a thanks for his troubles. He didn’t think on the gesture for the most part, opting to spend the rest of his day reviewing court documents and the never-ending stack of papers on his desk.

 

The point of going to Los Angeles, as Mr. Raleigh had informed Blake the day before, was to see a current client that had killed her husband in a blind rage. According to her, she caught him in flagrante with one of her bridesmaids not an hour before their wedding and shot him with his antique revolver. Said bridesmaid had a decidedly different story. He didn't blame their client, either. But no matter his empathy, he had to remain impartial. Luke took on the role of the analytic in their partnership, while Blake himself was more personable. People genuinely _liked_ him. Whereas with Luke, Blake wasn't entirely sure.

Professionally, they worked symbiotically. Outside of the office, they couldn’t care less if the other got hit by a bus. Four hours into their trip and barely past the Amarillo line, Blake had half the mind to kick open the passenger door and hurl Luke into oncoming traffic. Flying would have been infinitely preferable to cramming the two of them into the seats of his ’67 Cougar, but no. Luke had an irrational fear of being more than fifty feet in the air. The car was the next best option, no matter how faulty the air conditioning was.

At least Luke was quiet; it was an admirable trait of his. Neither had spoken a word to each other since Blake picked him up at his apartment across town before the sun chose to rise above the horizon line, moon still lingering amongst the stars. Outside the car, the overwhelming, dry southwestern heat baked the desert landscape and permeated through the open windows, the faint hint of humidity promising storms in the future. At least he could only hope; anything to cool the incessant heat burning beneath his skin.

At least Blake had dressed prepared—the same couldn't be said for the man in the passenger seat, still dressed in slacks and a button-down; if Luke were suffering from heat stroke, he didn't let it show. Outside of the office, Blake blended in with the locals, donning worn jeans and whatever shirt was within reach, no matter the temperature. He never could get used to the suits he was forced to wear on a daily basis: the collars rubbed his neck the wrong way, the soles of his shoes were scuffed from dragging his feet across concrete or tile, and his tie was always in some manner askew. _This_ was more comfortable, even despite having to wear shorts. He wouldn't pass out from heat exhaustion that way.

The second hour into their drive after stopping at McDonalds for breakfast, he set the cruise control and toed off his tennis shoes, shoving them to the side while Luke read some worn paperback in the passenger seat, oblivious to the passing scenery. They shared a comfortable silence, listening solely to the sound of the engine and the whine of the busted radio, the tuner lost somewhere in the backseat. Quiet would have been infinitely more preferable, but at least it drowned out the occasional turn of pages.

Hour three—Luke had taken to propping socked feet up on the dashboard, humming along to whatever words found their way through the static, audible enough to be heard over the wind rushing past the windows. Blake’s jaw twitched. By the fourth, Blake was gripping the steering wheel with enough force to squeak the leather. He could tell Luke was struggling to ignore his near-constant sighs, cracking his fingers and knuckles in retaliation—Blake should have strangled him yesterday.

“Dude, _seriously_.” Blake narrowed his glare towards his passenger, watching Luke match the gaze. “You gonna do that the whole trip?”

“You didn’t say anything, so I figured you didn't mind.” Luke shifted his attention back to his book, turning to the next page. “If you have an issue with something, say it. Don’t just _sigh_.”

“Oh, so you _did_ hear me?” Blake shook his head, blowing out a heated breath. “You ever consider that people don’t like it when others make noise? _‘Specially_ when you’re louder than the radio!”

“Maybe you should make it clearer then, instead of assuming I can read your damn _mind_.” Luke snapped the paperback closed and lowered his feet to the footwell, tapping the book against his thigh. “What’s your problem with me, anyway?”

He struggled with the last of his sanity not to slam on his brakes and send Luke through the windshield. “You should know _damn_ well what my problem is.”

Luke’s lips thinned, brows furrowed in curt realization. “…You still blame me for your sister.” Blake didn't answer. “I told you, time and time _again_ , it wasn’t my _fault_ —.”

“I don’t _care_.” He twisted the worn leather of the steering wheel beneath his fingers, chewing his lip. “You were _there_.”

“I tried to save her!” Luke snapped. “I didn’t push her in front of that truck. She ran out there on her own. I was trying to get her _away_ from it! You’re forgetting, it ran over _me_ , too. I couldn't walk for six months!”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t _die_.”

There was no way he could’ve forgotten the details of the incident or the aftermath, nor the decision by the court that her death had been entirely the driver’s fault. The guy was drunk and speeding through a residential neighborhood with no consideration for his surroundings. Really, Blake should have blamed _him_ , but no; his mind always backtracked to the fact that Luke had been watching her while he was out of town, his then-girlfriend driving him to her parent’s lake house for the weekend. Luke could have tried harder—he was supposed to be _protecting_ her. That was what babysitters did; they stopped children from getting into trouble and wandering into the streets unsupervised. She was just a _kid_ —she had her whole life ahead of her. She had wanted to be a trauma nurse, save people when they needed it the most. And instead Blake had been stuck standing next to her casket with the knowledge that he couldn't have been the one to jump in front of the truck and let it take him instead.

Luke hadn’t made it any easier on him, either. For the few months after the funeral, his former friend spent majority of his time avoiding him or ignoring every phone call or visit. The second to last time Blake saw him was the final day of the court hearing; after that, Luke was off to Massachusetts without a word or so much as a goodbye. He hadn’t heard from him since, instead internalizing his rage until it threatened to burst.

That, apparently, wouldn't be much longer. Blake needed to get off the highway— he needed to have this conversation somewhere where he could park and leave Luke on the side of the road if need be. Luke could hitchhike to Los Angeles for all he cared.

Blake pulled off onto exit zero and wound his way down the neglected road, crossing over the interstate as Luke began his reply. “…You _really_ don’t think I’ve beaten myself up every day since? That every night, I still hear her _wailing_ , that I don’t see her blood on my hands?” Luke’s fingers twitched against his ribcage, wringing the fabric of his shirt. “ _That’s_ why I left. I was tired of seeing you mourn, I was _tired_ of hearing your bullshit because you can’t get it through your head that I did what I _could_. And you can’t let it go!” Straightening up, he turned to face Blake, glasses slipping down his nose. “And _another_ thing—.”

Luke intended statement was drowned out by the unceremonious thump of something beneath the front two wheels, lifting the chassis enough for whatever it was to pass under, clearing the rear bumper just as fast as it began. Out of reflex, Blake stomped the brakes, heart in his ears, tires screeching over cracked asphalt and kicking up dust. Luke braced himself with his hands on the dash, managing to keep himself in his seat, much to Blake’s disdain.

Their surroundings were different, he noticed—instead of the desolate wasteland of the highway and the surrounding surface streets, they had pulled into what looked to be the remnants of an old town, lined on his right with dilapidated houses and patinated cars from another time, draped in ivy and decades worth of dust and scrub brush. Whatever trees existed were spotty at best, their leaves barely hanging onto dying limbs. The only sign that even remotely gave them a potential location was the collapsing relic of a sign outside of a larger structure, aptly named The First/Last Motel in Texas, Glenrio. No modern vehicles ventured anywhere in their direction; no tracks had been made along the roadway in a while save for their own and another fainter set headed to the west. Outside the windows, three vultures sat on a rock, beady eyes watching them in curiosity.

His next thought was that they _hit_ something—and heavy, at that. Out of the rear view, he couldn't discern anything that might have been in their path except for a dried stain on the pavement. “You think we hit a dog?” Blake stammered, shutting off the ignition. Unlatching the door locks, he turned to Luke, face just as white as his own. He was _still_ gripping the dashboard, chest heaving, glasses lost somewhere in the footwell. “Luke, you in there?”

Luke shook himself from his stupor and retrieved his glasses before dragging himself from the vehicle, legs shaking as he stepped into the dust. Blake joined him on the pavement, eyeing the endless desert to their left and the highway in the far-off distance, cars disappearing beyond the horizon, completely oblivious to their accident. Coughing once, Blake shoved trembling hands into disheveled hair, struggling to keep his knees from buckling.

Luke hadn’t spoken a word since, eyes instead focused on something at the rear of the Cougar. “Luke, _talk_ to me, man. What’re you—?”

“You need to see this,” was the only response he heard.

All of him wished he hadn’t; rounding the car, he gagged at the sight of the mangled corpse lying there in the middle of the two-lane, dried flesh barely clinging to its emaciated form. Multiple sets of tire tracks were burnt into its tattered clothing, large patches of skin torn out from where it was visible; the poor guy didn't even have _eyes_. That explained the vultures, but not why they were still watching.

It also didn't explain why Luke was going through his pockets. “Dude, stop!” Blake leant over, hands on his knees, doing _anything_ to look away and keep from having to smell the body downwind. “ _Fuck_ , this is so messed up— _Jesus—_ Stop touching him, Jesus Christ!”

“He doesn’t have any ID.” Luke righted himself and backed away, wiping his hands on his pants. “How long do you think he’s been here?”

“ _That’s_ what you’re thinking about?” Blake stood and turned his back to the town, pulling his hair at the roots. “He doesn’t have any _ID_ on him? We just ran over some poor guy!”

“He’s already dead. It’s not like you killed him.”

“Oh, don’t gimme that.” Blake spun and stood at the body’s head, gesturing to it on occasion. “I ran over him, isn’t that enough? If you’d’ve just stopped _yelling_ at me—.”

“ _I_ was yelling at you?” Luke scoffed. “ _You’re_ the one with the issue!”

“You’re doing everything you can to piss me off, admit it! You didn’t wanna go on this trip so you’re doing this just to fuck with me!”

“I swear to _God_ , if you don’t shut up about that—.”

“You wanna fight?” Blake lifted his hands, motioning Luke forward. “’Cause from what I’m hearing—.”

Lost in his tirade, he didn't immediately register Luke’s fist colliding with his cheek, knocking him off balance enough for the man to throw him into a headlock and drag him to his knees. “Strong little nerd, aren’t you?” Blake growled, grappling against his arm. Luke only held him tighter, effectively robbing him of whatever air he was trying to gasp. “Let _go_ —.”

“I’m gonna tell you this _once_ , Blake,” Luke began. “I’ve been sitting in the front seat of your deathtrap, and I’m _nervous_. This is what I do when I’m trying not to think about _dying_ , I fidget.” He heard Luke swallow. “Also, I did _not_ kill your sister, and you did _not_ kill this man. We’re supposed to be _adults_. I’m not supposed to have to put you in a chokehold to get you to _shut up_! So will you _please_ , for the love of God, just sit here and be quiet? I need to think.”

Luke released him, allowing him to back away into the dust in the adjacent ditch. At his side, his coworker joined him, still trying to wipe his hands clean on the fabric of his slacks, only smearing the dirt in further. Far off, a semi drove in and out of view, disappearing beyond a sign that welcomed drivers into New Mexico. _Great_ , if they got sought for murder or desecration of a corpse, they wouldn’t know what state to charge them in. “You think he’s homeless?” Blake asked.

Luke nodded. “Or else he was dumped. Can’t tell which.” With an exhale, he ran his fingers through mussed hair, attempting to comb it back into place. “He’s been picked clean, but that doesn’t explain why the damn _buzzards_ are here.”

“Preaching to the choir.” Blake sighed, digging his bare feet into the dirt, taking off the edge of the asphalt burn he had only begun to feel. Faint shivers ran down his arms, hands shaking ever so slightly. “So what d’you suggest we do? We can’t just _leave_ him like this. We gotta… We gotta do _something_ for him.”

Luke looked down in contemplation, clasping his hands together, eyes wary. It was a stupid idea, really. They had every right to leave him there; he wasn't any of their concern. But Blake felt obligated—he had to do _something._ No one should have to endure what his body had after the fact. Burying him was the first thing that came to mind, but there was _no_ way he was bothering with putting him in the trunk and stinking up the upholstery in the process. He probably had a shovel somewhere—.

“You got any gas in the trunk?”

“What?” He watched Luke straighten his back and stand, making his way to the vehicle, oblivious to the body. “Yeah, but that’s for—wait, you wanna set him on _fire_?”

“You got any better ideas?”

“Dude, you can’t just _burn_ him!” Blake shot him a glare. “We could bury him, hell, even _leave_ him, but don’t _torch_ the guy!”

“We just ran _over_ him, and you’re suggesting we leave?” Luke had the audacity to look offended. “Have you no compassion?”

Blake had compassion—Luke had no _soul_. “Says the pyromaniac over here!”

“Look.” Luke stopped him with a raised palm, eyes on the corpse. “We don’t have a shovel and I doubt we could find anything around here to dig with, and burning him is easier than leaving him to rot. We’re on a schedule, and we’ve wasted enough time sitting here _fighting_. And even if we call the cops, they probably won’t care this far out, right? So here’s the plan—we can take him to that building over here,” he pointed to a white brick-walled house down the road with a collapsed roof sitting beneath a dead scrub tree, “and light him up, and no one’ll know. We’re too far from civilization for the cops to even bother, and in the event they _do_ find him, they’ll think he was homeless. And that’ll be the end of it. Alright?”

It was true enough; that far out of the way, and in the middle of a ghost town, no less, no one would come looking for him. Whether they were aiding in disposing of a homicide or just another drifter, though, was a question for when the shock wore off. He joined Luke at the trunk and popped the latch, retrieving the red canister from behind their suitcases and setting it by the rear wheel. Luke’s suggestion to _carry_ him to said house had his stomach in knots—he actually had to _touch_ him?

Unwillingly, he did, taking the corpse by the shoulders while his coworker had him by the ankles. The stench was even worse up close, several times forcing him to gag during their hundred-yard walk to the decrepit home. Disgusting was one word for it; part of him began to wonder if Luke did this after Josephine died, if he carried her all the way to the hospital in town. Or was he just desensitized to seeing such atrocities in the first place? He wouldn’t put it past the guy in either circumstance.

He returned after a second trip with the gasoline canister and the lighter he kept in the glove box, handing over the container for Luke to douse him with. With what little there was of the roof left and the remains of his clothing as kindling, Blake lit a strip of wood and tossed it atop the pile, the pair watching it go up in flames in minutes. They would need to leave before the darkest of the smoke hit the sky, if it did at all. With some luck, no one would see it or care in the first place. But the thought that the police might suspect them was still there, pestering the back of his brain.

Piling back in the front seat after returning the empty canister, Luke went for the hand wipes in the side pocket, tossing them over to Blake. It would have to do until they reached a rest stop or gas station where they could scrub the stench of death off themselves. Blake broke the silence with, “Look, man, I’m—.”

“Don’t.” Luke faced him, pale. “We’re not going to talk about this, we won’t ever mention it. We’re going to Los Angeles, we’re going to talk to our client, and we’re never going to speak of this again. So if you want to start over from scratch, now’s the time.”

Blake took his dirtied hand in his, shaking it, features still grim. “Blake Benton.”

“Luke Lawson.” He thumbed to the road behind them and the onramp that would lead back to the highway and the trip ahead. “So, shall we?”

 


	3. Beat a Drum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Intro to Creative Writing, Fall 2014. Second short story assignment, literary realism. Draft three.

The click of a lighter broke the silence in the partitioned booth between them. A gruff, haggard man stared back at Jason Chase, corded phone in one hand and the other tapping away at the cheap linoleum desk, faded cuffs too large to fit his frame. Twenty years earlier, they sat in the same seats, his client’s wardrobe significantly tidier than what he witnesses now, scuffed with age and grime and God knew what else he had accumulated in his cell. Jason didn't bother to ask—that wasn't why he was there. No sense wondering just what was going on with the man, considering he put him behind bars himself.

The execution date for Colby Akins was set for that Friday, giving Jason four days to work a confession out of him and take the new evidence into court for a stay, or let the apparently murder of his late wife Susanna go unsaid for the rest of eternity. Two decades before, her story plagued the radio waves of Southern California, the prosecution alleging that since they never recovered her body, that somehow Colby had managed to dispose of it in the Verdugo Mountains. After all, Colby was abusive, they claimed. A woman wouldn't have gone to the hospital that many times for broken bones and _not_ be being beaten behind closed doors. He could still remember the headlines: _Hollywood Socialite Susanna Akins Missing from Glendale Home – Husband Still Eyed as Suspect_.

Jason’s defense had consisted of the complete opposite of what his rival had offered—that Susanna, having fled her two previous marriages under dubious pretenses, left Colby in the middle of the night to start over, probably under a new name with a new outlook on life. Divorce papers had come in the mail the week after her disappearance—a corroboration, albeit a poor one. Colby could have had those papers sent to him by himself, for all he knew. He had hoped for sympathy from the jury. They were more inclined to believe Susanna’s family, though, their money having afforded the best lawyer the could by. Colby had nothing to his name other than the clothes on his back. Supposedly no life insurance on either of them to warrant a motive, yet despite his efforts and pleas to the jury, Colby had been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1934.

Originally tanned from farm work in the Midwest, Colby had paled dramatically during his incarceration, now sporting a beard graying with the dress put on him every waking our of the day, previously blue eyes now dulled, almost silver. His cheeks were drawn, black bags beneath his eyes aging him well past his forty-five years. Decades ago, the media lauded him as attractive, practically in his prime, fresh out of University of California Berkeley with a promising career in engineering. He had no motivation—yet there Colby was, staring back at him with hard eyes. Older now, wary, innocence stripped away by a senseless crime.

This was a different man—this was no longer the Colby Akins he once knew.

Taking a drag off his Lucky, he thumped the ashes into the tray at his side, picking up the phone from the rack on the partitioned wall. “They tell me your number’s up,” Jason said into the receiver, blowing smoke onto the plexiglass while Colby huffed a laugh.

“Lord, they sure didn’t teach you empathy at your fancy shmancy firm, did they, boy?” Colby sat back in his plastic chair, one had tucked under his armpit, the chain from his handcuffs jangling. “I’m up for the chamber in a couple’a days, yeah. That why you’re here?”

“Part of it.” Jason placed the cigarette between his lips again, taking a moment to push his glasses back up his nose. “I was thinking about your case the other night.”

Colby smirked and tipped his head back, eyes to the ceiling. “That what gets you by? Y’ain’t got a wife, so you’re up thinking ‘bout how you got me sent away?”

“You _know_ that’s not true,” Jason growled. “You know I did what I could—.”

“I know, I know.” Colby waved him off. “You were just a baby, how could you know what you were doing?”

Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a smoke filled breath. “What’d you want me to do? We didn’t have much of a case other than those damn divorce papers. You know _damn_ well I couldn't defend you like that. Jesus, you could’ve at least left the body if you did it!” The silence on the other end left him disconcerted. “…You didn’t do it, did you?”

“So say I did.” Colby leaned forward as much as he was allowed, both elbows on the countertop, the frail fingers of his free hand tapping again. Graying eyes searched his own through the glass, narrowing. “What would you do?”

He leant back—what _would_ he do? Pleading for a new case wasn't exactly uncommon, especially the closer they ventured towards the actual execution date, but he feared there was too little evidence left to take to the court to get a stay. Unless Colby knew more than he let on in the courtroom. That would certainly explain why he had barely fought against his sentence in the first place. Never once did he say a word during the trial save for his ‘not guilty’ plea; instead, he had occupied himself with staring either straight ahead or at the judge, blank. Colby _seemed_ sincere on the surface, but then again, Jason only knew him inside the courtroom and in the visitor’s booth at whatever facility they moved him to across the country. Staring at the glass divider between them, he figured it was probably for the better that they were separated.

“Take me back to the beginning.” With a stern gaze, Jason put out his cigarette in the ashtray and leaned back, arms crossed. “Tell me what really happened. And even if you did kill her, convince me it was an accident.”

To the best of Colby’s ability, he did, making it a point to keep their gazes locked. “Her mother wanted her to get married, y’see. Didn’t care to who or what, didn’t give a shit whether it was a dude or some dyke from Queens. Just wanted her to get someone on her arm that’d stay, someone that’d support her spoiled ass. No, but she wanted _love_ , that’s what she told me. Said she _loved_ me, like she’d known me forever. We’d only known each other for two months, and _she’s_ the one proposing to me. Like I’m some damn woman.

“So we get married. Big shindig, got in all the papers in Hollywood. All the stars came to get their names in the spotlight, too. She always claimed Brando made a pass at her—like he’d even give her the time of day. So we go home, live for a year like nothing’s changed ‘cept we got a shiny piece of paper. She was always out on the town, visiting God knew who and coming home at two in the morning. I was working, trying to keep our home from tanking, ‘cause her darling parents weren’t paying for her no more and I was doing all the dirty work.”

Colby had motive—several, in fact. Wanting to stabilize his life, wanting to get out of a toxic relationship, or even wanting to get out of the spotlight she pushed him into. Jason leaned back in his seat. “So, what’d you do?”

Colby looked down at the table, then back up to him. Repeat. “Found out she was running around on me. She’d come home smelling like someone else’s cologne, sometimes she’d get back and beg me to take her to bed, trying to act like everything was normal. I hired a gumshoe, got him to follow her around for a week. Restaurants with men in suits, hotels and men older enough to be her damn _daddy_. And she thought I was just gonna take that?

“Now, I don’t love her. Never did. I only did it to get her parents off her tail, ‘cause I had the nerve to feel _sorry_ for that tramp. I never had the luxury of having my parents tell me what to do. They didn’t want me in the first place. So I took her outta that life, tried to make it better for her. But she ran off with my money every chance she got.

“But now, listen to me.” Colby leant forward, one finger pressed to the glass. “I didn’t do it on _purpose_ , y’hear me? She came home drunk and started raising Cain, throwing shit around like she _owned_ the place. House is in my name, I bought all the furniture. I bought our damn _bed_. She took a swing at me, sayin’ _I_ was the ungrateful one. That _I_ wasn’t living up to her expectations. And what was I supposed to do with that? We were upstairs in the hall. She lost her balance and fell over the edge, fell through that foyer piece she wanted so damn bad.”

“…So you didn’t do it,” Jason concluded. For the entirety of the trial and every meeting before then, Colby had _lied_ to him and told him Susanna had run away like she had done to all of her previous husbands, disappearing without a trace and popping up in Los Angeles again after a year on the run. Each time, her parents accepted her with open arms, at least until the next wedding. “If it was an accident, why didn't you call the police?”

“Do you think they would’ve believed me?” Colby barked. “Used to beat her, y’remember that? Copper’s would’ve thought I was the one who pushed her. She had a ton of cash waiting in her parent’s policy on her, weren’t you listening to the prosecution? That was their whole spiel, they thought I did it for the money.”

“But you _didn’t_. If you can help me prove it was just an accident, I can get your execution stayed. At least get the charges dropped to disposal of a body. But you gotta _help_ me.”

“Sounds easy on paper, don't it, Mr. Chase?” Colby let out a laugh, low. “You wanna know where I dumped her?”

Jason nodded, frantic. “Are you willing to write all this down?”

“Got it all in a notebook back in my cell, if you want it.” Jason told him he did. “Look, I panicked. I ain’t never had to deal with a dead body before. I didn’t know what to do! So I drove her up to the hills and dug a hole out by a culvert, deep enough for the coyotes not to dig her up. I can tell you where, too, if they haven’t built a house over her yet.”

“You could’ve called the police.” That was where he was stuck—no matter if Colby actually went through with disposing of his dead wife, Jason was more preoccupied with the fact that his client was a _moron_ only interested in preserving his personal pride. He wasn't even concerned with his own impending death in the chamber. Colby was practically beaming, finally able to tell his story knowing full and well Jason could do nothing about it. “You could’ve—I could’ve helped you. You would’ve been a free man!”

“Oh, and what would I go back to? Another dead end job? I’d probably end up on the Boulevard with all the other deadbeats. I’d rather die here than have to waste away with _tourists_ looking at me like I’m scum. I won’t survive out there. Couldn’t before, can’t now.”

There was really no hope for either of them, and especially for Jason’s cause. Colby had resigned himself to his fate, and Jason, even if he was able to prove his innocence, Colby would still have to live out the rest of his days in an environment no man should have had to endure. “I could plead our innocence,” Jason sighed, despondent, head in his hands. “You were young, you didn’t know what you were doing. We could say you were being abused too and were just trying to defend yourself. You won’t get out of here, but I could your sentence knocked down from life to maybe another twenty.”

“What part of ‘I don’t want to leave’ aren’t you getting?” Colby knocked the phone on the glass, the reverberations jerking Jason’s attention back to him. “I ain’t gettin’ outta here, so it’s best you either do what you said and get me out of the chamber, or leave me to die on my lonesome. ‘Cause either way, I’m a dead man walking.”

On a legal pad from his interior jacket pocket, Jason wrote down the exact details of where Colby remembered allegedly burying his wife, located somewhere near a drainage basin near the Verdugo Mountains, an hour from California State Prison. He left Colby with the promise he would do _something_ , and for a fleeting second, he himself believed it. Leaving Palmdale and crossing over the mountains, he ruminated on just what his life had become. Defending the innocent—or otherwise unproved—against their accusers, majority of his clients walking out of the courthouse free and clear. Except Colby. The face he saw in his nightmares, the voice that called out his failures one by one. The one he couldn't save.

He couldn't believe he was about to do this for him, either. Fighting every logical bone in his body, Jason stopped by his residence in Glendale and grabbed the shovel he kept on the wall in his garage, snatching up a blue tarp in the off change he actually did find something. For all he knew, Colby was sending him to look for a snipe, probably getting off on his lawyer willing to dig a hole in the middle of nowhere just to save his life. What a bunch of good that would do. It was Jason’s fault in the first place; he wouldn't be surprised if he had a few men waiting there to shoot him dead on the spot.

Over the sandy landscape he had known all of his life, the blue afternoon sky shifted slowly to night, palms and scrub brush disappearing amongst the blackness that followed, the artificial lights of the city soon dulling to occasional streetlamps. Los Angeles County would make it out that way soon, he figured; within the year, single-family homes would be dotting the streets like the desert never existed in the first place. In a year, they would never know they were building over countless bodies rouge cops and common criminals buried there, leaving their bones to rot beneath the southwestern sun.

He parked his ’49 Ford alongside a street lamp near the only culvert he saw that far out, nearly covered by dirt and brush and God knew what else. In the distance, the mountain rose a good few hundred feet, the moon fading in and out with passing clouds, doing nothing to illuminate his path. He picked a decent place to do it, Jason figured; far enough out of the way for the authorities not to come snooping, and close enough he could drive back and forth from his former home to dispose of the evidence without being seen.

Said evidence rested about three feet below his feet another hundred feet into the desert, well out of the way of the road. The noise of planes landing at Lockheed Air Terminal overshadowed his grunts and as he sunk his shovel into the dirt, throwing the pile into the tarp at his side and praying to whatever God there was that the spot he picked was the one Colby had mentioned. One hundred and twenty-three steps in, five steps to the right a foundation crack in the culvert. He stopped briefly at the sound of a car speeding past, squealing tires fading out seconds later and disappearing into the night. He tugged off his jacket and tossed it into the dirt; he wouldn't be needing it, anyway.

After an hour and four feet deep into the sand, he hit something relatively solid, not hard enough to be concrete or a rock. Jason dropped to his knees and reached into the darkness of the hole, feeling something course beneath his fingertips. ‘ _I wrapped her up in a rug and threw her in the back of my truck_ ,’ Colby had told him. ‘ _If the earth ain’t gotten it, she should be down there_.” It was; illuminated by the faint moonlight and stars, he spotted the light blue rug covered in dust and dyed red in patches, bearing very little signs of decay.

The size of the hole left him enough room to hop down and dig around the shape of the rolled carpet, eventually tugging it free and hoisting it up above the dirt for the first time in decades. This was it—this was the proof he needed to get Colby off of death row. As long as she was in tact, he could do it.

Which she wasn't. Unrolling the rug, Jason uncovered the fetid body of Susanna Akins, still dressed in the satin black dress Colby had described, now hanging loosely from her skeletal frame, her skull and hands missing from the remains. Indeed as the prosecution’s reports claimed, several of her arm bones were broken or fractured; of the age of the breaks, he wasn’t sure. The break in her wrist and her forearms, though, appeared to have happened at the time of her death, probably consistent with her fall.

But that didn't explain why her _head_ was gone. Had Colby tried at all to cover his tracks, get rid of any identifiable features in the event someone had actually bothered to dig her up? Coly lied—yes, she had fallen, but the inconsistencies were mounting. The motive made sense. He knew she was cheating on him. He knew she would come home that night presumably drunk. He _knew_ how to get out of a life he didn't want to be in in the first place.

Colby had played him from the first day, feeding him a sob story and letting him run with it, wasting his time and money on a venture he had no hope of winning. Colby never wanted to win the case—he knew his guilt. He murdered his wife in cold blood and let himself be put away without a fight, knowing full and well the family he would have dealt with if he had been freed.

Colby Akins wanted a way out. And as far as Jason was concerned, he got it.

Kneeling next to the headless corpse, Jason lowered his head in semblance of prayer before he rolled the rug back up, making sure none of the bones got loose and rolled away. If the police found out about the night’s transgressions, he would never be able to explain his way out of it. About Colby’s confession, about the lengths Jason went to to try and help a man whose only interest was himself. He couldn't care less. He dumped the rug back into the hole and covered it with the dirt gathered on the tarp, covering the disturbed patch with whatever brush he could pull free from the area.

Jason left the culvert with one single thought in mind, shovel in one hand tarp balled up in the other—that Colby could choke to death and he would do nothing to stop the state of California from killing him. All the time he wasted to prove Colby’s innocence, the lengths he went to over the years, even digging up the _damn_ body, all to stop bearing the responsibility pushed onto him in his early twenties.

And Jason would rather have _died_ than to see him again.


	4. 3AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Narrative Techniques, Spring 2015, as a short fiction assignment. 5-10 pages, literary realism. Was used in senior portfolio.

“So, uh… What’s with all the blood?”

It shouldn't have bothered Nate as much as it did. Three in the morning in a Laundromat in the middle of McRae, Georgia? Worse people had passed through under his watch—that hunter with the twelve-point buck on his hood last fall, the woman with the senseless need to bleach out every stain from her husband’s clothing every week, the insomniac stoners that spent their time watching laundry spiral around in the aging machines. Admittedly, the latter never bothered him, the pair only minding their business until the high wore off and they left to do whatever it was the youth did. He wouldn't know; that wasn't his generation.

But this guy was different. Not only did the stranger wander in out of the rain and not even acknowledge Nate was there, but he chose a machine on the opposite side of the off-white painted room, effectively away from himself and the stoners on the bench, one half asleep on the other’s shoulder, watching a machine full of socks spin multicolored circles. He was more preoccupied getting out of his button-down, shrugging the soaked gray suit jacket off his shoulders and stripping out of the blood-soaked garment, uncaring if anyone else was within ten feet of him. Even if the kids in there were sober, they wouldn't have paid the man any mind.

But _Nate_ did. The blonde was infinitely more interesting than the stack of papers in his lap, a scribbled-on textbook manuscript that someone at his part-time job had the audacity to assign him to do in his free time. The clock on the wall read 2:57—almost twenty hours later, and he was on the verge of ripping his hair out by the roots. Whose bright idea was it to let the book get that far? The authors didn’t have any idea how to use a computer, that much was true.

The sound of a washer door opening brought him back to the awkward reality that he was being _glared_ at, the stranger having caught his eye while he was staring for the past minute. The stoners paid no mind, both now asleep and half collapsed on each other and the stack of dryers behind them. They _really_ needed to find a new hangout spot.

Admittedly Nate wasn't much better off—he could have been home asleep in his own bed, not waiting for half of his closet to dry in a dryer after an unfortunate mishap involving a water leak flooding a good portion of his own apartment, most of the damage centering around the bedroom and the utility room. Cleaners would be out in the morning to assess the impact and tell him if his new hardwood floors were salvageable. All that time and effort for nothing.

Not that the stranger would have cared, his attention now focused on shoving the reddened remains of his shirt into the washer and measuring out how much bleach he needed to turn it stark white again. Probably the whole bottle, from the looks of it. “So… What’s with all the blood?” Nate spoke up, clearing his throat as he moved to round the dryers and stand next to the man, now sliding quarters into the machine to start the cycle. “You hit a deer?”

“Very likely,” the stranger said through a sigh, taking a spare towel left by someone earlier in the day and wrapping it around his neck, flopping onto the bench with his head hung low. Something about him set Nate on edge; he looked relatively average compared to other men, frailer than most, save for the paleness of his skin and the odd glaze over brilliantly gray irises. A shiver ran through Nate, the stranger catching his gaze again. “There’s three possible reasons why I’m here tonight, if you’re willing to take a guess.”

“What, like a game?” He took a seat next to the man, one knee bent on the bench with the other hanging over the side. “Pick your own murder mystery?”

“No one was _murdered_ ,” the stranger scoffed at him, shaking his head. “But if you’re inclined, it’ll probably interest you more than that book you’re dying red over there.”

Nate laughed at that, leaning over to prop an elbow up on a dryer. “Man, right now _anything_ sounds better than having to proofread that trash. My brother has me do editing jobs when I don’t have enough to do _here_. It’s a textbook on how to edit books. Ain’t that illegal somewhere?”

“If it isn’t, it should be.” The stranger held out a hand to him, a noticeable layer of red under his nails. “Noah, Noah Carter.”

“Nate Kennedy.” Noah’s hand was freezing to the touch despite the warm air inside the Laundromat. “So, I’m assuming you didn’t go out and kill someone before you came in here.”

“No, murder would mean I’d have to go to jail.” Noah shrugged and turned to face the machines with a sigh. “Plus, I think I’d be cleaning up more than a shirt.”

“Probably’d have to get a new wardrobe too, while you’re at it.” Nate patted the machine, the clang doing nothing to wake the potheads across the room. “So, lay it on me. What’d you do?”

“Option one, I actually did hit a deer on my way home. Totally caved in the windshield, and I’m probably going to be picking out fur for weeks.” It didn't sound like the most unbelievable idea in the world; his cousin took out a buck last summer, a trucker in the area hauling the corpse away in the back of his pickup. But he hadn’t seen the flash of headlights when he pulled in, nor were there any cars in the lot save for his own, parked under a street lamp at the far end of the lot. Unless he parked somewhere else?

“The second option,” Noah went on, now leaning back against the machines, dirtied fingers playing with a stray thread on his towel, “is that I was involved in a gunfight earlier in the day. I could have a pistol tucked into an ankle holster. I could’ve shot a man, would you care?” _Most likely_ , Nate thought, brows furrowed.

“Or, you can choose option three.” Noah scratched behind his ear, the movement drawing his attention to a pale scar there, a jagged thing that stretched just below his hairline a good three inches in length. “I found a dog on the side of the road about a mile from here and drove him to the vet next door. The doctor said someone shot him and left him to die. He… didn’t make it through surgery.”

 _Oh_. If that was a lie, then it was a _cruel_ prank to play on a stranger, let alone to say to anyone in general. Who talked about animals dying with a straight face like that?

“So, those are your choices.” Noah turned to him, gray eyes almost yellow in the florescent light of the room. “What do you think I am? An accidental murderer, a potential killer, or a savior?”

“Sounds more like you’ve had a hard night, if all those things’ve happened,” Nate told him in all seriousness. Noah rolled his eyes, grinning at the comment. “So, let’s see what we can rule out here. Choice one, you don’t have a car in the parking lot, and I’m pretty sure if you hit a deer, you’d’ve blocked traffic in and out of here before someone got out there to carry it off. Town this size, everyone hears about it.”

“That’s true,” Noah agreed with a nod. “That one’s false. So, am I a killer or not?”

“Honestly?” Nate looked to his tennis shoes, toeing at a crack in the tile while he thought. “It could go either way. I mean, you got that weird scar thing,” he pointed to a spot behind his own ear, outlining the stretch of Noah’s scar, “right there, and there’s what _looks_ like a bullet wound in your shoulder. _And_ , you got blood on your hands. _But_.” Nate paused, catching the mild worry on Noah’s face. “Pretty sure even if you were an assassin, you’d still have the heart to save a dog.”

Noah chuckled at that, carding his fingers through rain-damp hair. “They’re planning to cremate it tomorrow, said it was a stray. Probably wandered in from Helena when that storm blew in last week.”

“That’s…” Nate rubbed the back of his neck; behind him, the buzzer on his dryer rang loud, startling the potheads from their stupor, the pair wandering out of the Laundromat without their socks. “That sucks, dude.”

“The guy who did it’ll probably get away with it, too.” And if that wasn't the truth. He left Noah to his shirt washing and rounded the dryers again, beginning to unload a mess of tangled jeans and t-shirts onto a separate dryer before beginning to fold and load them into a basket; he would have to carry it to his car later. “Though, I do have an ankle holster.”

Nate nearly kicked the bench in shock. Across the aisle of dryers, Noah was laughing at him, slapping his knee. “ _C’mon_ , I’m a county cop, Nate. I have to have a gun on me at all times. Even at—is it already three thirty?”

“Apparently.” Nate straightened his back and resumed his folding, ignoring the officer and his ever vigilant watch on the washer. “So what’s with the monkey suit?”

“I was at a wedding in Birmingham,” Noah said through a yawn. “I didn’t get on the road until almost eight, and then that poor dog took me out of my way.”

“I can believe it.” Noah went quiet after that, Nate finishing up his folding and cramming whatever he couldn't fit into the basket between the individual stacks, shirts and pants and several pairs of black socks filed somewhat in an orderly fashion. “Well, I—gotta take this basket out to my car. I’ll… leave you to your shirt then, officer.”

Behind him, he didn't both to check if Noah waved him off, simply pushing open the glass-paned door and taking his umbrella from where he left it on the exterior wall, making it to his car across the parking lot before his clothes were soaked _again_. The glaring neon of the emergency veterinary clinic reflected on the wet asphalt below his feet, catching his eye beyond the pale yellow of the Laundromat. Noah was still watching the machine through the window, arms crossed, looking every bit a statue.

Did Nate really dare disbelieve him, though? He sounded sincere—who in their right mind would lie about picking up a half-dead dog on the side of the road? And who was he to doubt the credibility of an officer? If he was one to _begin_ with—none of it sat well with him.

Apparently neither did it with the _veterinarian_ either, the woman cocking an eyebrow at him, rapping her fingers on the desk. “I’m sorry, sir, but no one’s come in with a dog tonight. Maybe it was another clinic? There’s one over in Helena, maybe you could look for your pet there?”

“It’s not my dog,” he sighed and thanked her before leaving through the front door, the rain still falling in a steady downpour. Yet in the reflection of the Laundromat on the blacktop, he found no one standing in Noah’s spot, the man long gone from sight. By the door, a light flickered, the buzz quiet in the downpour. Abandoning his umbrella, he ran back inside in a panic, fully expecting Noah to still be there, possibly on the opposite end of the room; instead, he found the place vacant, the only remnant of the man’s existence a gold cufflink on one of the dryers, stained in red splotches across the face, yet dry and frigid to the touch.

Outside, the storm rolled on.


	5. Untitled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Contemporary Fiction Craft, Spring 2015. Inspired by "Why Did I Ever" by Mary Robison.

I’m barely in the town for five minutes before I hear it, that weird buzz they don't talk about in movies. Lingering. Omnipresent. I walk through the streets of this decrepit town hoping it will disappear as I escape the forest, but it’s still there, lingering. Women and children watch me from restaurant and shopping windows, eyes following me just like the faint whine and progressively grows louder, so much louder, until I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and shout to the sky. A man on the other side of the road stops to stare. A woman with her baby stops in the middle of a crosswalk to stare.

The sky is blue, all knowing. The buzzing keeps on, uncaring. The city has eyes. Its residents keep watch at all hours, under the one blinking yellow light in the middle of the only crossroads in town.

I don't belong here. They don’t belong anywhere else. I keep walking.

II

The air is thick with water, burning in the sunlight. I sit on the riverbank and watch the fish swim in spirals downstream, dodging fallen logs and rocks built into man made dams. Fireflies join me as night falls, blinking patterns that I can’t read. I don't know why I’m here. I don't know how I got here, but I’m watching the fireflies blink and dance their dance in the dark, alone.

Their rhythm is familiar to me, yellow lights fading into the black in sync, dozens of them spelling out partially recognizable letters. My father taught me Morse code when I was younger, convinced I would go into the military and make him proud. Tell that to my shrink. At least it comes in handy now.

The incessant blinking synchronizes for the briefest of seconds, and then I can see it. Seven letters.

Dash. Dash dash dash. Dot dash dot dot.

T.O.O.L.A.T.E.

But for what?

III

“When are you going to tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

“That you’re here for him.”

“I’m not—who told you that?”

“You did.”

“I didn’t tell you anything. I’m here to see the house.”

“You know you’re lying, right? You really think he’s waiting for you?”

“He is. He isn’t. It doesn't matter. I’m not here for him.”

IV

His house burnt down last year, or so his mother told me. From where I stand on the front porch, it’s still there – charred around the windows, but it still stands. The front door is open, hinges rusted off. Inside, the walls are scorched and collapsing, blue paint now dyed a hideous black. The windows are gone, glass shattered in the overgrown weeds out front. Upstairs, the roof has fallen through, singles and insulation decorating the once grand staircases. It was beautiful once – my brother loved it.

It should have fallen when I torched it years ago. Now, it smolders from the lighter I tossed inside, black smoke rising into the sky beyond the treetops. It’s the way it should have been. He should have burned; it should have fallen. All would have been right with the world.

Instead now, I watch it fall bit by bit, until there’s nothing but a pile of rubble and the blare of fire trucks in the distance. They wont find the house. No one knows where the house is.

No one knows where any house is. The house doesn't exist. My brother doesn't exist.

Maybe I don't, either.


	6. Night Narrative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Senior Seminar, Fall 2015. Night Narrative.

“Please—you don’t wanna do this!”

Smith flicks the ashes from his half-burnt cigarette onto the body strewn out before him, the poor guy clutching his ribcage with his uninjured hand, the other lying dead at his side, shot through the palm. Occasionally, his fingers twitch, an abortive attempt from his brain to protect himself. He won’t be moving anywhere tonight, not if Smith has anything to do with it.

He’s a poor guy, alright—poor in the sense of he should have minded his own business. Bartering black market information on the back alleys of Los Angeles, never showing his face except in the dark of night. Feet muddy with spent oil and piss, hands drenched in secondhand blood and shame—he’s a disgrace. A loner, with nothing to his name other than the suit on his back and the cash crammed into his wallet.

Speaking of. “I’m afraid you didn’t give me a choice,” Smith says over the hum of a car passing in the street to their left, its headlights failing to illuminate them in the dark of the alleyway, too far to even know they’re there. He squats down to rifle through the snitch’s jacket pocket, pulling out a billfold and the wad of twenties and hundreds shoved inside. “See, you paid me two hundred. You _owe_ me ten times that. So this?” He waves the money at the man, smacking him across the face with the wallet. “This is mine. _Including_ interest.”

“You can’t do that!” Smith just laughs and stands, shoving the cash in an interior pocket of his coat. “You—What you’re doing is illegal! I’m gonna call your Boss—.”

“And tell him what? That you’ve been skipping out on your job?” Smith glances down at him, mirth in his eyes as he drops his cigarette beside the guy’s head, stomping it out with the heel of his shoe. The poor guy’s shaking now, practically hissing through his teeth with every breath, his pants coming out in steam. It’s almost hilarious, how scum like _him_ think they can tell him the rules of how transactions go down and how he thinks he’s _immune_ to the cops. Fat chance. “You’re supposed to _pay_ me half of whatever you get paid. Not ten percent, not _twenty_ , but _half_. And this right here?” He takes his gun from his holster and kneels, pointing the barrel between his eyes. “I can’t trust you to not do it again.”

“I can _explain_ , I swear—.”

“You can’t.” With a sneer, he cocks back the hammer and covers the snitch’s mouth with his gloved hand. “Boss ain’t happy with you. And when boss ain’t happy, _I_ ain’t happy.”

He dies without so much as a protest, the echo of the shot still ringing in Smith’s ears when he stands, face spattered in red; he wipes his skin clean with his glove before holstering his weapon. Outside of the alley, a man waits under a streetlamp, cigar dangling from between his lips, coat covered in a fine sheen of mist. They’ll have to report to the Boss that one of their informants is dead, that his body needs to be disposed of before the morning light or anyone comes snooping. After all, a man with three bullet wounds is suspicious—the last thing they need is the cops on their tail.


	7. Animal Narrative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Senior Seminar, Fall 2015. Animal Narrative.

The sun’s setting over Shinjuku Station, light streaming through the countless skyscrapers, miles and miles of neon preparing to alight the minute it disappears beyond the horizon. Not that they see it anyway, these people—they’ve lived in the dark for so long, amongst the constant barrage of fluorescent bulbs in their offices and their own homes, striping the roof of the rail cars as they make their way across the wards. Even the lights from their cell phones never stop, technology taking precedent in a city that never sleeps, probably hasn’t in recent years.

Time moves faster here, you think. But what do you know—you’ve only been here a few years, perched high atop a sign reading Yodobashi Camera, or something close to it. Hundreds of feet below, people wander the streets with closed umbrellas and briefcases, not a cloud in the sky. They know their weather, you consider, flitting your eyes to the shifting reds and oranges above, not nearly as endless as your other nest. Somewhere atop the Metropolitan Government Building, giving you a view of the entire ward at night. Hell, the entire _city_ , Shinjuku at your grasp. You can go wherever amongst the lights, amidst the endless array of buildings with your siblings, your parents, that one cousin you never talk to.

During the day, you feed on whatever scraps they leave along the sidewalks and in dumpsters, unobserved by the humans mindlessly wandering past, never paying you a second glance. At night, this town is _your_ town.

There’s something special about this day, though. You don’t know why—there just is. There always is. They humans are awake like their normal, busybody selves, all headed for the train to Tokyo or Shibuya, Yokohama, Chuo, wherever they set their sights. There’s that guy who always drops his glasses waiting at the intersection near the McDonalds, and the woman who’s always complaining about the riffraff standing around outside the rail station, with their cigarettes and general nonchalant attitudes. People hand out tissue packets on the sidewalk to residents and tourists, advertising businesses you know nothing about. They take them without so much as a ‘thanks’ and head on their way, there one second and gone the next.

The city never stops moving. The city never sleeps. Cars honk on the highway as you take flight, black wings scraping the sky, riding the currents through the towers. Today is a special day—something will happen today, and you know it. It’s a Metropolitan Building kind of day. One of your cousins is already there, chattering to a few others about what a joyous day it’s going to be. “Are you excited?” an unfamiliar crow squawks, flapping her feathers in frantic jerks as she practically bounces off her perch.

You nod, plucking at a disarranged feather in your wing. Below, the humans wander. A truck honks. A train blows its horn aboveground. There’s anxiety in the air, coming in off the ocean in waves, a sense of foreboding that leaves you fluffing your wings whenever the wind blows. It’s exciting—it’s _new_ , a change amongst the monotony of watching humans and scavenging.

And the best part? They don’t know anything. They’re too busy looking down at their phones or at the rows of unlit neon to care about what goes on above or below. They want to get home, be with their families. It’s nearing the six o’clock hour now, the sun fading fast beyond the high rises, long shadows casting across the streets. Headlights slowly come on the deeper the night falls, until there’s nothing left but the permanent scar of fluorescent bulbs on the night sky and endless neon dying the roads.

If it was alive during the day, it’s even more thriving when the moon rises, night bringing out the club seekers, the pub crawlers, bands and fans and shoppers racing before closing time. People wander in their offices through open windows. Elevators descend to the ground floor and back up, over and over, a strange dance of cables and motors and electricity, so new to you yet still so foreign. Your father wove stories of it years ago, when he snuck on one early in the morning and rode it until a watchman found him and shooed him away, back onto the streets.

Now, the lights continue their never ending ride and fall across the landscape, tainting the black above their heads in a perpetual yellow glow, a permanent haze blocking out the stars. You haven’t seen the stars since you flew away from Ibaraki, their existence a myth to the city dwellers. You wonder, have they ever left the lights? Do they know the sky changes color? Do they know there’s something above them, or do they walk on without taking notice?

They’ll find out tonight. You can feel it on the wind, something warm and static-filled skirting your wings. It takes another hour for the activity to hit a high, the noises from the street coming to their peak, roaring in the air—and then it stops. The lights flicker once, twice, and then they’re gone. The city plunges into blackness before your very eyes, the permanent haze from the neon and fluorescents and everything in between ceasing with one broken breaker. Somewhere, a transformer must have blown, or a section of the grid failed.

Either way, after the lights quiet and the packed noise dim, you finally get a look at them—the stars above, for the first time since you left home. And down below, you wonder if they’re taking notice, if they're looking up and wondering just what exists up there, wondering if it’s been there all along. Your flock hasn’t ever seen the sky before, but you have. And you love it, every second of it, love looking into the night sky and being able to see endlessly, the horizon finally in your grasp.

With a flap of your wings and a caw, you take flight for the first time, with your flock at your back, and together you soar.


	8. Improvised Identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Senior Seminar, Fall 2015. Character needed to improvise an identity.

There’s a man across the aisle of the train, staring. Just staring, with his head cocked at an angle and eyes narrowed, like he’s trying to discern something. Jacob sits and stares at his newspaper from the opposite bench, struggling to keep from looking back from under his sunglasses. He’s used to the staring, sure—on red carpets, through the lens of film cameras for television or film, but the people are always distant. Out of range of touch, out of range of actually _talking_ to him. Now, he’s crammed inside of the metro for the first time since he was a child, on the way to his sister’s home upstate.

And there’s a guy _staring_ at him. He doesn’t recognize him at all—sandy brown hair with light hazel eyes, donning a black jacket with too many spikes on the shoulders and a cocky grin on his lips, like he _knows_ something. Jacob slouches a bit and covers his face with the newspaper, attempting to block out the man on the other side of the train.

It doesn't work—the guy only watches harder, now standing and walking across the aisle, sitting two inches from him on the bench. “Swear I’ve seen you somewhere,” the stranger muses, arm perched on the back of the bench. Jacob attempts to hide further, the stranger egging him on with, “C’mon, you been on TV or somethin’?”

“I haven’t,” Jacob lies, finally lowering his paper and turning to the man, sunglasses still perched on his nose. “My names J—oseph Lions. I’m from Calabasas.”

The stranger hums to himself, tapping his free hand on his bare knee, black jeans ripped and holey in too many places. “Sure do look like that Jacob Chastain guy. You _sure_ you’ve never heard of him?”

“I don’t have cable,” Jacob fibs—he’s going to be struck by lightning, surely. “I spend most of my time at my lake house. I’m—in town to visit my sister, actually.”

 Another hum, followed by a nod. “’S too bad, really. Guy’s pretty much been my idol since his first movie came out.” The stranger shrugs, then turns fully to face Jacob, a smirk on his lips. “So what about you?”

Jacob blinked. “…What about me?”

“I _mean_ ,” the stranger waves to the space between them, still leering. “Tell me about yourself. Nice guy like you shouldn’t have to sit alone.”

Flushing, Jacob turns his head—he isn’t getting away from this man any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was actually gonna use this as a Destiel prompt with one of them being a porn star and the other guy hitting on them regardless.


	9. Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Senior Seminar, Fall 2015. Narrative needed to focus from being near the character to far, zooming out of the scene.

“Hard t’believe people lived here once,” Altalee comments at her side, words muffled through the red scarf wrapped around her face, a light dusting of sand coating the barely-there strands of blonde hair on her head. Black sunglasses cover her eyes and the rest of her face, a trinket they picked up in Pasadena, the only pair not shattered from the haboob that tore through last month. “I mean, who ever woulda thought?”

With a huff, Marta rolls her eyes and shakes the dirt from her hair, moving to adjust the cloth over her face. “That was ten years ago, Alta. _Ten_. You’re acting like you’ve never seen a desert before.”

“Dude, have _you_ ever seen this before?” She knows Altalee is glaring at her beneath her sunglasses, eyebrows quirked. Before her, she watches her friend pull her backpack closer and place both hands on the metal grating of the chain-link fence, shoving a foot between the holes. “’Cause last time we were in school, I’m pretty sure Los Angeles didn't look like _this_ in textbooks.”

As far as Marta can remember, it didn't—and it shouldn't have. A shining pinnacle of modern society, Los Angeles had been a place for expatriates and lost souls to make a name for themselves amongst the glimmer of city lights and the promise of opportunity, of wealth and prosperity. Tourists had once filled the streets with money in their pockets and dreams in their heads, never once taking mind to California’s overpopulation or the strain their impact put on their resources. Highways and side streets leading into the downtown area had been blocked off a year after the exodus, K rails spread across freeways blocking entrances and exits, weeds growing up through asphalt and concrete to reclaim the earth to what it once was.

It’s sad, really, to see it in this state, the vibrancy lost to the perpetual wasteland of brown that had once only existed beyond the last stoplights in the suburbs. Now it creeped further inland, one-story dwellings now buried and erased off the map. Somewhere in Illinois, Rand McNally is having a field day cataloguing the dwindling empire.

“It looked a lot better when I was living here,” Marta adds, waving her hand in the direction of whatever was left of the courthouse a few miles out. “You ever seen a palm tree before?”

“Honey, I’m from _Florida_ ,” Altalee scoffs, already straddling the top of the fence. “I’m just glad I don’t gotta deal with that gator in the front yard anymore. Now, are you comin’?” She waves over to Marta, still at the base of the fence with her hands on her hips. “Or are you gonna stay down there all day?”

“I don’t see why you’re so deadset on getting in there,” Marta grouses. Altalee laughs on the other side of the fence, hands on her knees. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” Altalee cackles. “You, Miss High and Mighty, with your fancy college education. You’re tellin’ me you don’t wanna go raid the courthouse? No one’s been in there since they set up the Exclusion Zone. Who knows what’s in there!”

Marta drops her head and heaves out a sigh before kicking her feet in the sand, stirring up dust. This is a stupid idea, all of it. Breaking and entering into a restricted area of the country, just to see what they can steal and bring back to Phoenix. That doesn't stop her from dragging her feet to the fence, all while Altalee watches her with her arms crossed, probably smirking under her face wrap. “You know you’re a bad influence, right?”

Altalee chuckles, clapping her hands. “You love it.”

Under her breath, Marta smiles. She does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otherwise known to my professor as "two best friends/gal pals."


	10. Life in Short

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Senior Seminar, Fall 2015. Needed to describe a character from birth to death.

“We never raised you like this,” his mother had told him a week before, the two of them separated by a thin sheet of Plexiglas, her face pinched like it always had been in a perpetual scowl. He had ignored her for the most part, too enrapt with tapping his fingers on the desk before him, white and hollow. “You were always a good kid, Sonny. Always minded your manners and played with your brother. We didn’t raise you to—.”

“I know,” Sonny said, and left it at that.

She never _did_ raise him wrong, he considered in retrospect. He and his brother had lived in the middle of nowhere in Texas, amongst nothing but the tumbleweeds and the never-ending dust of the plains. Conservative parents—Christian until the day they died. His mother, she hadn’t aged a day since he left their two-bedroom shack outside of Groom, long after she picked up the bottle and never stopped. She never hurt them, never did them wrong. Always put them in the best schools she could in Amarillo, always paid their dues and bailed them out of trouble whenever it walked up onto their doorstep. His father had no say in it—he was still out getting milk, or so he was told. Not that it had ever been true.

He had a good childhood—a good _life_. At one point, he had friends, prospects. He had been planning to go to college on a scholarship, play football for a state team. And fifteen years after the incident, he was left in a six by six cell looking down at the red-embossed Book in his hands, flipping idling through the pages like they could raise him from his personal Hell. “It’s your fault, you know,” his mother had told him a week before. “If you wouldn't’ve been driving that night, you never would’ve hit that kid. And his mama never would’ve filed charges.”

Right, because driving sober and accidently hitting and killing a kid—one of the most popular kids in his high school, no less—warranted being sentenced to death. His brother never came to visit him behind bars; instead, his mother was left, a firm reminder of where he had come from, of the fifteen years he had spent in prison waiting for his execution date.

Thirty-three was too young to die. He still had half a life ahead of him, things to accomplish. Friends to apologize to, jobs to apply for and lose. Love to kindle.

Instead, he listened to the rap of a guard’s fingers on his cell door and the words, “You’re up, Sonny,” echoing through his cell. He had an hour, tops.

His mother wouldn’t be there to watch him die.


	11. The Keeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Senior Seminar, Fall 2015. Final work. Needed to be 8-20 pages. Was used in senior portfolio.

The beach was empty when Conner swam ashore.

Somewhere a few miles off the coast, his sailboat was sinking to the blackened depths of the Pacific, never to be seen again except by passing sharks and the occasional diver. _Good riddance_ was all he could think as he floated amidst the surf, turning choppier by the minute with the gathering clouds on the horizon, lightning streaking the sky. Storms were coming—and not slow enough, either. But at least he was there, fighting the waves rather than sitting in the cabin with fish pecking at his skin. He shuddered at the thought; just what he needed, his sister to find him weeks after the fact off the coast of Washington State as a pile of bones wearing a flowery button-down.

But he was there—he was _alive._

Scouting had been his first priority, weary eyes scanning the horizon for anything in the shape of salvation. Another boat, the shoreline, _anything_ —he found an island instead, the black-painted lantern room of a lighthouse gleaming in the last vestiges of sunlight, waves lapping upon the rocky shore. A small cottage sat alongside it, red-roofed and white-walled, looking every bit habitable, even at a distance. Better than nothing, he considered—all he had to do was _make_ it there before the storm hit, before Hell washed in with him.

Fighting the surf the few hundred-yard distance left him winded, even more so as lightning began to crack in the background, thunder rolling over the sounds of crashing waves. Every ambient CD he had was going in the trash after he made it home after this; the idea left him laughing in near-hysterics the closer he ventured, arms and legs straining with fatigue by the time his feet could touch the silted bottom, knees threatening to give out. But he made it—alive and barely cognizant enough to breathe, but he _made_ it, with just enough time to spare before the bottom fell out of the sky, the sun a long-forgotten memory.

The shoreline of the island wasn’t much: a tall hill beyond the shell-littered sand, beachgrass blowing in the breeze, a lone rat scurrying further inland and away from the downpour. Further past the dilapidated wood-paneled staircase, he could see the roof of the cottage and the newly flickering light of the lighthouse, yellowed beams projecting into the cloud cover. Maybe someone was home—maybe someone could pick him up off the beach; his legs weren’t good for much anyway, not with how weak he felt, exhaustion bone-deep.

If it weren’t for the rain, he would have slept there in the storm, let himself recover and hopefully climb the staircase when he was ready. Now, he knelt in the sand and looked up to the cottage, eyes following the illumination from the lighthouse and another beam coming from the top of the hill, pointing in every direction. Somewhere in the rain, he heard a dog barking, padded paws plodding through the grass and crunching shells, skidding when it found him. A russet Irish Setter panted in his face, nudging at his arm before turning and barking back up the hill where a man in a yellow raincoat stood, brighter than the sun.

At some point, he must have passed out; no longer did he feel the rain seeping into his already-damp clothing or hear the surf crashing all around him. No longer did he choke on the increasing humidity or taste salt in his mouth or fear what existed beyond his toes. Instead, Conner opened his eyes to what looked to be a den, paneled in aged cedar and decorated with paintings of lakes and brilliantly sunny skies, of mountain lions and bears and other animals he didn't want to meet on his worst day. A blanket was draped over him, warm despite the chill creeping through the partially opened windows, rain still pinging off the roof and the lighthouse in the yard.

Inside—the man in the raincoat brought him inside and let him sleep on his couch in a set of clothing he had no recollection of ever putting on. Considerate, thoughtful— _mildly_ creepy. “You’re awake,” a ragged voice said from the other end of the room, past the leather armchairs and the fireplace, its flames licking soft paths in the dark of the room. Conner sat up with a jolt, dislodging the blanket into his lap.

The man—the Keeper of the lighthouse, he suspected—stood in the doorway with a mug in hand, now dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants and a faded pullover, socked toes curling into the floorboards. Pale gray eyes watched him at a distance briefly before he crossed the room, handing over the porcelain mug, warm in his hands. “Must be lost,” the Keeper commented, turning to seat himself in one of the armchairs. He didn’t look older than forty, eyes creased at the edges from wear, beard and auburn hair streaked with gray lines. Something about his face gave him the impression of a hard life. A sad life.

Conner sipped from the mug and nodded, grateful for the gift—at least it was coffee, something to wake him from his stupor. “My boat capsized a ways out,” he supplied, looking down at his hands and ignoring the shiver that ran through him. “How did you know I was there?”

“Distress call,” the Keeper stated. He whistled low under his breath, the Setter running for him from across the house, nails scratching the floorboards in her excitement. “That, and Emma here thought she saw something in the water. Turns out she wasn’t lying this time.”

Conner huffed a laugh and reached down to pet the Setter, Emma nearly jumping into his lap, tail twitching to either side on the hardwood flooring. “Thanks, for that.” He paused to listen to the fire, continuing, “I lost—everything, now that I think about it. My wallet, my phone…” He looked up to find the Keeper staring at him, scratching his chin beneath his beard. “You wouldn’t happen to have a phone here, would you?”

“I do,” the Keeper started, “but it goes dead when the rain rolls in. At this rate, you’re better off trying to call tomorrow. Take it you got family that thinks you’re lost?”

A nod. “My sister, in Seattle. I’d been calling her for the past few days while I was sailing, but now…” He shook it off—he could call her tomorrow when the weather cleared, tell her where he was. That he was _alive_. “Where am I, anyways?”

“Ozette Island.” The Keeper stood and snapped his fingers to Emma, the dog refusing to leave Conner’s hand on her head. “Emma, c’mon. Leave him alone.”

“She’s fine here,” Conner said, looking down to the Setter, her snout now perched on his knee. The Keeper just rolled his eyes and walked before the fire, shaking the last remnants of the storm from his hair. “You—What did you do with my clothes?”

At that, the Keeper chuckled under his breath, lowering his head. “Put ‘em on the furnace. Figured you wouldn’t be comfy wearing them on my couch. That’s how you get pneumonia.” He turned his eyes to the window, rain falling steady outside.

Conner hummed another ‘thanks,’ continuing to pet behind Emma’s ears. “You didn’t have to do all of this,” he said, low. He was grateful, either way.

“Couldn’t leave you out there like that,” the Keeper sighed. “I go to shore in four days, so you’re better off staying here than wandering the island. There’s a bedroom upstairs that ain’t been used in a while, but it’s a place to sleep.” He nodded to the doorway, a staircase visible beyond the jamb. “Put some clothes up there too. Gets cold at night here.”

Another ‘thank you,’ and the Keeper called for Emma again, the Setter reluctantly leaving her new friend and padding across the room, sitting at her owner’s side. He stroked a finger between her eyes, Emma thumping her tail in obvious delight. “I’m sorry,” Conner said, abrupt in the silence of the room. “I didn’t catch your name?”

The Keeper blinked. “I didn’t give it.”

-+-

For the most part, the Keeper kept to himself, never staying in one particular place for long. For the remainder of the evening, Conner watched him dance from the den to the living room-turned library to the kitchen, Emma almost always at his side. Every room was as meticulously spotless as the last, never an object out of place, barely any dust spotting the shelves and cabinets, every bookcase or table with a specific purpose to it. Vaguely, he recalled something similar once in a home and garden magazine, something his sister Marissa had picked up years ago in the grocery store, all of the pictures featuring gaudy home décor and spotless showrooms, all too beautiful to even remotely step in.

The only difference? Someone actually _lived_ here and purposefully kept it in that condition, despite no one ever being there to see it firsthand. Even his bedroom kept with the theme, neither the dresser nor bedspread dirtied by any outside sources, everything orderly, with intent.

Conner made the bed the following morning, unsure if the Keeper would care of the disarray but uncomfortable seeing anything out of place, especially something that large. Downstairs, the cottage was empty, the sound of rain replaced with the breeze flitting through the trees and the willow outside, fog blocking out the sunlight outside the windows. Daylight—he could call home, get the word out that he wasn't dead in a ditch. Call the radio station and ensure that his vacation was going as planned, despite the most recent hiccup.

He found a rotary phone on the kitchen wall next to the refrigerator, both remnants from an era he never knew. Somehow, despite the dust on the receiver and the dial, it still worked, the tone ringing in his ear until he spun each individual number. Marissa picked up on the first ring, breaths coming in harsh pants into the speaker. “Hello?”

“Marissa? It’s—It’s Conner, can you hear me?”

“Oh thank _God_.” Marissa let out an exaggerated sigh, letting out a hysteric laugh on the other end. Conner shook his head with stifled grin. “Mom was about to call the police! Where _are_ you?”

“I think I hit a reef, or another wreck.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We lost Colly.”

“I don’t _care_ about the boat, Conner,” she huffed. “We can always get another boat, but we can’t get another _you_! Jesus, you wreck and you’re more worried about that hunk of trash? We _both_ tried calling your phone, you know that? We’ve gotten your voicemail for hours, and now you’re calling from a—Where _are_ you, anyway?”

“I’m—I think I’m on an island named Ozette. Do you have any idea where that is?”

“Jesus _Christ_ , Conner,” Marissa huffed. He listened for a while to the noise of Marissa walking into another room, presumably Conner’s office, while he looked around the corner, fully expecting to see the Keeper wander in the back door with Emma at his side. All he heard were the trees and a lone owl hooting in the willow outside the kitchen window. “Jesus _Christ_ , how in the _world_ did you get all the way out there?”

“It’s not _my_ fault,” Conner said with an eye roll. “I was following the wind. You took the GPS out of my bag before I left, remember?”

“And I’m _sorry_ , believe me. But Ozette? What’re you trying to do, go to Canada?”

Conner covered his eyes. Canada sounded better than being on the other end of this phone call. “Look. This island has a functioning lighthouse, and the Keeper’s allowing me to stay in his home—.”

“Wait, a lighthouse keeper?” Something in her tone sounded rushed, frantic. “Like, _the_ Keeper of Ozette Island? C’mon, Conner, you’ve never heard that story?”

What story? What in the _world_ was she talking about? “No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

Marissa swore under her breath. “Look, you remember that story on the news a few years back in Astoria? Well, this guy named Leon Abernathy had been accused of killing his sister and he went to jail for a few years. And after he got out, he dropped off the map. Legend goes he lives off the coast, but no one’s ever really confirmed it.” She tapped on something on her end, probably his desk. “You think it’s him?”

Conner looked to the floor, bewildered, heart jittering in his chest. As far as he could recall, he didn't exactly remember the story broadcasting on the news stations. He hadn’t lived in Seattle for that long, his previous home in Los Angeles much more preferable climate-wise to where he was living now, in a two-bedroom apartment near Puget Sound. At least in Los Angeles, he could actually see the sun and feel dry air, rather than the cold humidity that permeated Seattle’s streets, along with the never-ending cloud cover. Thinking back, it had only been five years since they packed up and left the loneliness and monotony of the sepia streets for a brighter future. Truth be told, he felt he _belonged_ in Seattle, amongst the rain and the clouds, the music he couldn't understand, the sense of purpose that accompanied him to his job at the radio station every evening, filling the airwaves with slow jazz and interspersed news from around the world, available to insomniacs across the state.

But never in his time in Seattle had he ever heard of the story, nor had he covered it on one of his nightly programs. He remembered murders, remembered assaults and strange sightings in the forests, the things that didn't involve politics or the stock market. “I don’t really know what to think. I don’t remember,” Conner said through a sigh, looking down to his socks. “He doesn’t—He doesn’t even look like a murderer.”

Marissa made a noise on her end, a chair creaking in the background. “And what _does_ he look like?”

“Sad, mostly.” The Keeper really _did_ look sad. Detached, almost, without purpose. Whatever emotion he lacked had been stolen by Emma, her exuberance almost too much for one dog to handle. Conner felt for him, really—aside from possibly murdering his sister in cold blood. Most of the time. “He doesn't talk much. Won’t even tell me his name. But he’s—He doesn’t _seem_ like someone who’d go off the deep end.”

“That’s what they _want_ you to think, Conner.” Conner resisted the urge to throw the corded phone across the room, just barely. “Look, you call me _tomorrow_ , alright? And every day. I don’t wanna not hear from you and then find your body out in the surf, you hear me?”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re just like mom?” he laughed; Marissa scowled through the receiver. “Look, I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna kill me. But if it’ll keep you from driving out here yourself, I’ll _call_ you. Alright?”

“You’d better,” she huffed.

They said their goodbyes and Conner placed the handset back on the rack, the home resuming its previous silence, aside for a new whistling noise coming from the backyard. Treading the main hall, Conner peered out the window beside the back door, spotting the Keeper and Emma lazing beneath the willow tree, their backs to a few plotted headstones in the shade. His heart jumped at the sight, at the pure _thought_ that this man, that someone so lonesome in appearance might have done something so atrocious. And they were under the same roof, secluded miles off shore, and him with no way out.

 _She’s wrong… Right_?

-+-

From what Conner could tell, the rotary phone was very seldom used in the house, covered in a fine sheen of dust at every angle. The only piece in the house—and outside, after having wandered the yard the day prior—that looked out of place, that didn't _belong_. And in a way, Conner understood it. Allegedly, the Keeper was keeping himself in a self-imposed exile, away from human contact except for his apparent weekly trips to shore. Unless someone wanted to contact him about the lighthouse or whatever he was doing there, the phone would go unanswered, probably indefinitely. At least until now.

The house was silent for most of his stay, aside from the sound of the Keeper wandering from room to room, inside and out, his footsteps almost reminiscent to the ones he heard creaking upstairs on occasion, always when the Keeper was close by, always on the same floor as him. He didn't know what terrified him more—the ghosts in the bedrooms or the murderer and his dog. Both didn't make sense, either way.

But he couldn't come out and _ask_ him, could he? Despite his sister’s wishes, he couldn't invade his privacy like that, couldn't pin him in a corner and beg him to lie to his face, tell him that he hadn't committed some heinous crime. He didn't look the part, or act it; the Keeper kept pictures in the library, presumably of his mother and father when they were young, childhood pets and friends. One of him and a younger woman, both with the same hair, same eyes. “She was beautiful,” the Keeper said over his shoulder, the abruptness of his presence nearly sending Conner into a fit. At his back, the Keeper laughed, amused. “What’s got you so spooked?”

“The—ghosts,” Conner lied. The Keeper shrugged and moved to stand at his side, hands shoved in his pajama pockets. “She’s your sister?”

The Keeper nodded, sighing through his nose. “Was. It’s a long story, not very interesting.”

Conner’s pulse raced. “You’ve got an audience,” he offered, fighting the fear rising in his throat.

A brief pause, and the Keeper opened his mouth to speak—whatever he attempted to say was cut off by the sound of the phone and Emma’s barking from the kitchen, effectively silencing their conversation. “Later,” the Keeper added before stepping out of the library, leaving Conner to stand with framed memories and even older books, alone with his thoughts.

Shaking the panic from his veins, Conner gathered himself and left, stepping onto the back porch and into the grassy yard, bare feet treading the morning dew beneath the willow tree. The headstones watched on, silent. Emma joined him as he stood before them, her wet nose judging his hand until he scratched her ears, her tail swishing wildly. “He’s not crazy, is he?” he asked; Emma blinked and snorted in reply.

“They want me to check the light,” the Keeper announced from the back porch a short time after, the door slamming shut behind him. Conner and Emma both turned and walked to the cottage, watching the Keeper pull on his boots and lace them, shaking free dried mud from the soles. “The guys on shore said they detected a short during the storm a few nights ago, so they want me to go check it out.”

“It’s not automated?” Conner questioned.

The Keeper shook his head. “Most of them along the coast are, but since I’m here, it’s only partially. I keep plants in the tower, too. There’s a high school in Seattle I’m partnered with, they send me experiments to test throughout the year. …It’s kinda nice, actually. Gives me something to do that’s not cleaning all day.”

That explained the spotlessness of the house—he was looking for something to _do_. Something to occupy his mind while he lived there. A stationary life didn't suit him. “You don’t get that many visitors out here, do you?” Conner asked, earning a laugh from the Keeper.

“Not often,” he admitted. Gathering his clipboard from the metal-grated table by the porch swing, he added, “The people who drive the boat here, mostly. They take me to and from shore when I need supplies, and they’ll bring the data from the experiments to the ranger station, then send it to the city. It’s a lot of work, but it’s the least I can do.”

“You’re a scientist?”

“Used to be. Probably still am, considering.” the Keeper answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was a botanist. Long, long time ago. Probably before you were born. What’re you, twelve?”

A huff. “I’m twenty-eight,” Conner scolded, much to the Keeper’s amusement. “So… Why the seclusion?” The Keeper lowered his eyes at the question, visibly wary. “You’ve been here for years, but why?”

“Like I said, long story.” He turned to walk to the lighthouse, whistling for Emma to follow him. “C’mon, girl. You can’t just—.”

“I’ll watch her, if you’d like?” At Conner’s side, Emma nudged his hand, licking his fingers. “I was planning to look around the grounds again, anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” the Keeper nodded. “Don’t mind them if they try to talk to you,” he said, thumbing to the headstones. “The last keeper died seventy years ago. They’re chatty with anyone that isn’t me.”

Conner stood for another few seconds, long enough to watch the Keeper disappear beyond the front door to the lighthouse, before a realization crossed him. _This man’s either crazy or bluntly honest_ , he thought to himself, still idly petting Emma’s head. At his side, Emma watched him with love in her eyes.

He swallowed. _Not crazy_.

-+-

An awkward silence fell between them through the remainder of the day, the Keeper never lingering for too long in any room, more restless than normal. Conner never could get comfortable no matter where he sat: his bedroom, the couch in the den, under the willow in the yard. None of it eased the jitters running through him, the implications still weighing heavy on his mind. His host very well _could_ have been a murderer, despite everything he had learned to the contrary. One of the gentlest men he had ever met in his life, caring more about those on the mainland than his own wellbeing, even so far out. Even Emma trusted him, never leaving his side unless Conner was in her line of sight.

Both lonely creatures set to live even lonelier lives, lost at sea.

He still had another two days to find out, too. So far during his two days there, the Keeper had never so much as made a threat towards him or spoke out of turn. He even cooked, though he never said much during meals, only making inquiries into Conner’s life if curiosity struck him. Conner had only divulged the basics: he had worked at a radio station in Seattle for the past few years, he had a sister and mother and a cat that would probably glare at him when he got home, and he spent most of his free time—whenever he had any—on the water, something about it calming to him. More calming than having to play jockey from ten in the evening to two the next morning.

Infinitely more calming than _this_.

He found Emma sitting by the Keeper in the den later that night, the quiet sounds of the wind outside mingling with the crackle of firewood and the footsteps upstairs, floorboards creaking under the disembodied weight. It didn't bother him as much now, now that he was used to their routines, every spirit and soul set in their ways, never failing to fall out of rhythm. Still, the Keeper looked lonely there, face shallow in the light of the fire, eyes heavy, sad. “You’re staring,” the Keeper said, soft. He looked over the arm of his chair to where Conner stood leaning against the doorjamb. “You’re not as quiet as you think, standing there.”

“Quieter than others,” Conner shrugged. “I don’t know how you stand it here.”

“I stopped hearing them years ago.” The Keeper turned back to the fire and leaned over, enough to prop his chin up on his elbows. “Something on your mind?”

Conner made his way to the couch along the wall, the air whooshing out of the aged cushions when he sat; Emma watched him out of the corner of her eye, tail thudding for a brief second. “You said earlier you had a story to tell,” he started, attempting to ignore the erratic pace his heart set in his chest, the way his hands shook when he wasn't looking at them. “My sister—she knows your story. Or, your alleged history, rather. I didn’t… know if it was true or not. If you actually killed your sister.”

He expected the Keeper to show some sort of emotion towards that, expected him to ignore him and leave for bed and let the conversation hang there in the air. All he got was a brittle sigh and a nod. The Keeper stared into the fire. “…I didn’t kill her,” he confirmed, hollow. “I never… That’s what the media said from the beginning. They like to paint people in a certain light, make the innocent look as guilty as possible. …The only thing I’m guilty of is caring too much.”

Conner sat back on the couch, hands held tight in his lap as he listened, the Keeper’s voice more solemn than ever. The Keeper continued and bowed his head, eyes closed. “My name is Leon Abernathy, if you don’t already know. I’m not… I never murdered anyone. I never… I’d _never_ lay a hand on anyone, let alone my own family. My sister…” He swallowed. “She was dating this guy at the time, someone from her college. Couldn’t trust him worth a lick. And he’d hit her—the night before, he hit her so bad, I had to take her to the emergency room. Stayed with her all day…” Worn fingers dug into the fabric of his pants, almost frail in the dimmed light. “The guy came back after I dropped her off the next day. Cops didn’t believe me when I found her. They couldn't find the guy either, finally gave up after a few weeks. Figured, I was the only one there. Didn’t have a motive, but that apparently doesn't matter anymore.”

He turned to Conner, eyes distant. “They put me away for ten years. Didn’t have anyone to go back to after I got out, so I took what was left of my savings and moved here.” He motioned to the cottage, to the Setter sleeping on the rug. “No one bothers me, no one has to remember the guy that ‘killed his sister.’” A sigh. “I figure it’s easier this way.”

Conner’s heart went out to him, really. Even then, he couldn't adequately empathize with him, feel whatever torment he was going through, feel the pain of self-imposed exile because the court system failed an innocent man. “What was her name?” he asked instead, catching the way the Keeper’s body softened at the question, the way his shoulders slumped.

“Emma,” he answered, glancing down at the Setter. Emma slept on, undisturbed. “Her name was Emma.”

Conner nodded, quiet. What was he supposed to say? Condolences were out of the question, especially for something that happened so long ago, something nothing even the sincerest of apologies could fix. Nothing could have been done. The Keeper had made a life for himself there, helping take care of an aging Light and tending to the plants in his care, all out of the public eye, away from those still willing to think of him as a killer. But as far as he could tell, Leon was anything but. Everything about him appeared genuine, from his concern over the smallest things to the very air about him. A man with nothing to hide.

“I—just thought of something,” Conner blurted; the Keeper looked to him, an eyebrow raised. He really needed to learn to think before he spoke. “No, hear me out. I told you before, I work at a radio station. I… If you wanted to help get the word out about your side of the story, let everyone know you’re not what they think you are… I could help.”

“That’s… That’s alright.” The Keeper shook his head. “It’s been twenty years. I doubt anyone’d care if the case was brought up again, anyway.”

With a quiet nod, Conner stood and made to leave the room; he briefly stopped at the Keeper’s chair, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing there, enough to catch his attention. “If anything, I believe you.”

Under his hand, he felt the Keeper relax, a weight lifting. “…Thank you.”

-+-

The Keeper saw Conner off two mornings later, Emma at his side, tail swaying as Conner waved his goodbye, dressed in the same laundered clothing he swam ashore in. He couldn’t deny the ache in his heart as he watched the man disappear around the corner, headed away from the four-wheeler they drove into Ozette on and into the city limits with only a ‘thank you’ as a goodbye, eyes ahead of him, blending into the fog with his bag over his shoulder. So Conner hadn’t died—he was safe on the shore with all his faculties, sans sailboat and his personal effects, lost somewhere off the coast of Ozette Island. He needed to get his wallet replaced along with his debit cards and buy a new phone. Another day.

For now, he had Marissa, his sister leaning back against her battered Jeep with her lips pursed, brows furrowed. “You look excited,” she mused, pushing off the vehicle and jerking her thumb to the passenger side. Conner threw her into a hug anyway, ignoring her pleas for mercy. “Okay, okay, I _get_ it, now get _off_ —.”

“Missed you too,” he laughed, and rounded the Jeep.

Seattle was still a four hour drive from Ozette City, giving them enough time for Marissa to never stop talking, constantly asking him questions about where he was or how long it took him to drive from the coast to civilization, or if the Keeper ever threatened him. Conner answered to the best of his ability, omitting nothing. Leon hadn't been anyone to fear, wasn’t anyone that needed to hide anything beyond his name and story. “He said he didn’t kill his sister,” Conner offered an hour after their departure, Marissa side-eying him. “He said her boyfriend beat her to death. Leon was the only one there to pin the blame on. …He was just trying to help.”

“You think he’s telling the truth?” she asked, blonde hair whipping in the wind through permanently open windows. “I mean, he’s been living alone for how long?”

“He’s not insane,” Conner scoffed. “He’s just… I asked him if he wanted me to get the word out, if he wanted his name cleared.”

Marissa glanced at him, drumming her fingers along the steering wheel. “And? What’d he say?”

Conner looked down to his shoes, dried mud flaking around the soles. “He didn't want to change what’s already happened,” he told her. “He just wants to be left alone.”

He had spent the majority of the last few days thinking back on those words, even more so on the back of the Keeper’s four-wheeler. In a way, it would have helped to clear an innocent man’s name of a murder he never committed, if he accepted Conner’s help. Maybe it was better this way—here, he could protect the privacy of a man who wanted nothing more to do with the outside world, content to live the rest of his life alone with his dog and the ocean, set to die in that home like all of the other keepers in the past. It suited him, Conner thought. A fitting end for a life spent in mourning, awaiting the day two souls could meet again.

At his side, Marisa humphed, stretching back into her seat with the faintest of smiles on her lips. “Sounds like you made a friend.”

Conner blinked, settling. “…I guess I did."


End file.
